Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Today in Warsaw, a group of activists blocked a conference on fracking which was to be held in the Hotel Intercontinental. A small group of people played drums and made noise. Others went around the hotel, some made speeches against fracking and some occupied the conference room. A banner was put up in the hotel and on a nearby building. The action lasted for two hours and was successful in that the conference had to be cancelled. However the police fined the people playing music. After 2 hours, the people occupying the conference room were brutally removed by police. 11 people were arrested.

The people who made the action were activists from Syrena, the Anarchist Federation and the ZSP. One of our comrades from ZSP was fined 50 euros for making noise and 2 were arrested. One was already released but unfortunately the other one is charged with assaulting a police officer. (Ie, her brutal arrest did not go so smoothly for the cops). Tomorrow the prosecutor will decide if she can be released before her trial or will have to stay in custody. A solidarity picket will be held tomorrow and of course, if she is not released, we will make some stronger protest campaign.

A solidarity protest was held in front of the police station today.

We are concerned that the authorities are currently looking for some scapegoats since every day since Nov.11 there are news items about violent anarchists and the right wing and media are trying hard to build this image. In reality, the bigger problem is with the police - for example, in the station where the comrades were held, they often beat people, and they beat people on Nov. 11. And they can be brutal during arrests and we understood this is what happened when the police intervened today. The activists making the occupation were peaceful, which we will show since we are compiling video and photographic evidence of these events.